Bernard Knight - Dead in the Dog

The police superintendent added his own knowledge.

‘The last activity I know of through police channels was a fortnight ago near Sauk where they tried to blow up a sub-station on the hydroelectric grid coming down from Chenderoh dam. Otherwise, it’s been pretty quiet up here for a couple of months. They seem to be concentrating more down south in Johore and Negri Sembilan.’

‘The point is, gentlemen, am I to recommend to the Brigadier that we send patrols out into the hills beyond Gunong Besar? He won’t like that, as he wants the West Berkshires and the Gurkhas to get prepared for this push up around Grik. The alternative is to write this off to some local thuggery and let it ride?’

‘With some extra protection up around the estates, I would hope,’ cut in Blackwell. ‘I’ve increased the police presence along the road, but there’s only so much I can offer with the manpower I’ve got.’

The Director nodded curtly. ‘We’ve promised that already — and we’ll certainly keep it in place for a number of weeks. I’ll get some of these dozy soldiers off clerking and painting flagpoles and truck ’em up and down to Kampong Kerbau every few hours.’

The raw-boned sergeant joined in, to justify his drive up from Ipoh.

‘If it’s not the CTs, sir, what’s the alternative? Why should any local Malay or Chinese want to shoot up a couple of bungalows?’

‘Or an Indian, as it could be a disaffected tapper or latex worker,’ Blackwell reminded them. The two policemen began a dialogue, leaving the Army men out of it for the moment.

‘There’s no suggestion that any of the workers at Gunong Besar have been sacked or victimized lately,’ replied Blackwell. ‘Though the owner certainly isn’t loved by one and all up there, I’ll admit.’

‘No possibility of any Europeans having it in for him, is there, sir?’

The superintendent smiled rather wryly. ‘There might be a few who’d like to take a swing at Jimmy Robertson, but I doubt they would want to shoot him!’

Colonel Flynn’s laugh was more like a bark.

‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that, Steven! But spraying two bungalows and the workers’ lines with bullets is hardly an effective way of going about an assassination!’

‘What about these bullets, sir?’ asked the humourless SIB man, who had a craggy face with a lantern jaw. ‘Have they been identified? And what about the cartridge cases?’

They looked at the local police chief for information.

‘We’ve got them all, they were all standard three-oh-three to fit either Lee-Enfields or Brens, but I don’t see what they can tell us, with no chance of getting any weapon to test. I’ve sent some of them, together with bullets that my inspector dug out of the woodwork, down to the Government Chemist’s place in Petaling Jaya, just in case.’

This was the nearest they had to a forensic laboratory, in the suburbs of Kuala Lumpur.

‘Maybe the Ordnance Corps boffins could tell us when they were manufactured or issued,’ suggested the Intelligence Corps officer.

‘They’d probably have to send them back to the UK for that, but it’s worth trying,’ said the sergeant. ‘Trouble is, there’s so much of that stuff knocking around. The CTs have stolen some and a lot is still left over from when they were fighting the Japs.’

‘These were all single shots, according to the witnesses,’ continued Blackwell. ‘So it’s unlikely they were fired from a Bren. Someone had to keep pulling a trigger and working a bolt, which seems a bit odd, with about fifteen shots fired.’

‘That’s if it was one person, sir,’ observed the sergeant, cussedly. ‘It could have been twenty persons firing one shot each — though that’s bloody unlikely, I know.’

The discussion went on for some time and the eventual conclusion was what the colonel wanted, which was to avoid a major hunt through the many square miles of hills beyond the rubber estates on the Kampong Kerbau road. When they eventually broke up, the SIB man drove his own vehicle over to the police station to collect a couple of the empty shells that Inspector Tan had retrieved, to send to the Army ammunition experts. After he had gone, the superintendent decided to take a trip up to Gunong Besar to reassure the Robertsons about the increased patrols on the road.

As he sat in the Land Rover’s passenger seat for the fifteen-minute drive, he absently watched the clean, straight lines of the rubber trees passing by and like so many expatriates and military, wondered what it was like back home now, just before Christmas. He came from Derbyshire and nothing could be more unlike the winter-cold heathland and crags of the Peak District than this steamy, lush land of padi, rubber and jungle-covered mountains. His wife had gone home in October, on a six-month visit to be with their eldest daughter, who was having her first baby in the New Year. Steven Blackwell had been in Malaya since the end of the war, taking the chance of promotion from a sergeant in the Manchester force to Inspector in Malaya, helping to re-establish the police after the Japanese occupation. Now forty-five, his ability and dedication had pushed him up to Superintendent and if he could stay alive for another five years, he would be eligible for a good pension and the chance to start another career back home. Wryly, he thought that though he had been exempt from military service during the war, he was now as much soldier as policeman, a large part of his duties being anti-terrorist, especially this liaison with the military.

As the heavy tyres whined on the hard-packed earth of the track, he wondered what the locals thought of their country being turned into a battlefield for year upon long year, for ideological reasons. Maybe they would have been just as contented — or discontented — under the Communist Party of Malaya as under the imperialist British? He doubted that, as though the Malays were generally a placid people, there was little love lost between them and the Chinese, who held the commercial power in the country. There had already been bad riots and plans for independence were well advanced. Blackwell stole a look sideways at his driver, a smooth-faced, amiable Malay and suspected that he was not too bothered about who ruled in Kuala Lumpur. He had regular pay, his family was housed in two rooms in the police compound, he had a nice uniform and he could drive around all day — the acme of ambition for many Malays being a job as a syce , a chauffeur.

Steven sighed, maybe all the Europeans should just bugger off home and leave the natives to get on with it — what business was it of ours, anyway? Another disastrous war had not long finished in Korea, but there was little sign of Chin Peng giving up here, though he was slowly being forced back by measures introduced by the stern genius of General Sir Gerald Templer, who had recently returned to Britain to become Chief of the Imperial General Staff.

Blackwell threw off his attack of introspection as they were coming through the cutting on the last lap before Gunong Besar. These moods must be from living alone since Margaret went home, he thought irritably. As they came in sight of the knoll on the right, his driver pulled over to let a Ferret armoured car pass them in the opposite direction, one of the frequent patrols that the Army had promised. With a wave to the driver just visible behind his protective flap, his driver turned up the slope and climbed to the flat area in front of the larger bungalow. As he climbed out, he could see Diane come to the rail of the verandah above, attracted by the sound of their vehicle.

He touched the peak of his cap in greeting. ‘Hello there! Is James about?’

The blonde waved a glass and Steven realized that he had rarely seen her without a drink in her hand.